A data analyst is much more likely to be assigned to a business department andnbe the local Excel guru who cobbles together SQL against the enterprise data ware

A data analyst is much more likely to be assigned to a business department andnbe the local Excel guru who cobbles together SQL against the enterprise data warehouse, or whatever passes for one. They essentially fill the gap between IT resources in terms of the business's data needs. The analysis is typically the application of basic arithmetic under the constraint of gnarly "business logic," which is almost never logical. This is not meant to be pejorative, but represents an amalgamation of the traits I've seen in those who have the title of data analyst at our client companies. A data scientist tends to have an advanced degree or significant experience in applying statistical techniques to the corpus of business data. To give an oversimplified example, the data analyst likely answers the question "who are our best customers and what are their traits?" whereas the data scientist answers the question "what traits of customers can predict their becoming a great customer?" Since we all live in a bubble, I will share mine for context. I work for a BI and analytics consultancy that also has a data science practice and our clients are primarily mid-sized corporations.